Resident Evil 2 Remake looks even more horrifying with raytracing

If you thought Resident Evil 2 Remake needed to be a little spookier, then you should keep an eye on a new work-in-progress raytracing mod, which overhauls lighting and shadows to give the game a much darker feel.

You can watch a side-by-side comparison between the base game and the modded version above, courtesy of Massihancer, who has also made a raytracing mod for Doom 2016. The film grain effect won't be for everyone, but I love how light sources cast less of a glow, leaving more of the room in darkness, and how the new shaders seem to pick out environmental details more clearly. It's most obvious at 1:57, when Leon casts a torch over a ravaged zombie's face.

To achieve it, Massihancer adopted a "double contrast" technique using a combination of global illumination shaders, filmic effects and enhanced reflections. That includes using RT Shaders, the work of another modder, Pascal Gilcher. Massihancer also utilized ambient occlusion to add new shadows, including for Leon's hair and body.

There's no word yet on when the mod will be out—Massihancer is waiting for the final release of Gilcher's shaders first, which are currently in beta.

As a reminder, Resident Evil 3 Remake is out next week. Here's everything you need to know.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.